Part 33 (1/2)

In a trice my rage was turned from him to the unknown enemy behind.

With that one shot all rancour had gone from my heart. I turned, and there, running through the trees up the river bank, I saw a man. At the first look I recognised him, though he was bent well-nigh double, and the air was thick with fog. It was the fellow Jan Hamman.

I ran after him at top speed, though he was many yards ahead of me. I have never felt such lightness in my limbs. I tore through thicket and bramble, and leaped the brooks as easily as if I were not spent with fighting and weak from the toils of months. My whole being was concentrated into one fierce attempt, for a thousand complex pa.s.sions were tearing at my heart. This man had dared to come between us; this man had dared to slay one of my house. No sound escaped my lips, but silently, swiftly, I sped after the fleeing figure.

He ran straight up stream, and at every step I gained. Somewhere at the beginning he dropped his pistol; soon he cast away his cap and cloak; and when already he heard my hot breathing behind him he cried out in despair and flung his belt aside. We were climbing a higher ridge beneath which ran the stream. I was so near that I clutched at him once and twice, but each time he eluded me. Soon we gained the top, and I half-stumbled while he gained a yard. Then I gathered myself together for a great effort. In three paces I was on him, and had him by the hair; but my clutch was uncertain with my faintness, and, with a wrench, he was free. Before I knew his purpose he swerved quickly to the side, and leaped clean over the cliff into the churning torrent below.

I stood giddy on the edge, looking down. There was nothing but a foam of yellow and white and brown from bank to bank. No man could live in such a stream. I turned and hastened back to my cousin.

I found him lying as I had left him, with his head bent over to the side and the blood oozing from his neck-wound. When I came near he raised his eyes and saw me. A gleam of something came into them; it may have been mere recognition, but I thought it pleasure.

I kneeled beside him with no feelings other than kindness. The sight of him lying so helpless and still drove all anger from me. He was my cousin, one of my own family, and, with it all, a gentleman and a soldier.

He spoke very hoa.r.s.ely and small.

”I am done for, John. My ill-doing has come back on my own head. That man--”

”Yes,” I said, for I did not wish to trouble a man so near his end with idle confessions, ”I know, I have heard, but that is all past and done with.”

”G.o.d forgive me,” he said, ”I did him a wrong, but I have repaid it.

Did you kill him, John?”

”No,” I said; ”he leaped from a steep into the stream. He will be no more heard of.”

”Ah,” and his breath came painfully, ”it is well. Yet I could have wished that one of the family had done the work. But it is no time to think of such things. I am going fast, John.”

Then his speech failed for a little and he lay back with a whitening face.

”I have done many ill deeds to you, for which I crave your forgiveness.”

”You have mine with all my heart,” I said, hastily. ”But there is the forgiveness of a greater, which we all need alike. You would do well to seek it.”

He spoke nothing for a little. ”I have lived a headstrong, evil life,”

said he, ”which G.o.d forgive. Yet it is not meet to go canting to your end, when in your health you have crossed His will.”

Once again there was silence for a little s.p.a.ce. Then he reached out his hand for mine.

”I have been a fool all my days. Let us think no more of the la.s.s, John. We are men of the same house, who should have lived in friends.h.i.+p. It was a small thing to come between us.”

A wind had risen and brought with it a small, chill rain. A gust swept past us and carried my cast-off cloak into the bushes. ”Ease my head,”

he gasped, and when I hasted to do it, I was even forestalled. For another at that moment laid His hand on him, and with a little shudder his spirit pa.s.sed to the great and only judge of man's heart.

I walked off for help with all speed, and my thoughts were sober and melancholy. Shame had taken me for my pa.s.sion and my hot-fit of revenge; ay, and pity and kindness for my dead opponent. The old days when we played together by Tweed, a thousand faint, fragrant memories came back to me, and in this light the last shades of bitterness disappeared. Also the great truth came home to me as I went, how little the happiness of man hangs on gifts and graces, and how there is naught in the world so great as the plain virtues of honour and heart.

CHAPTER VII

OF A VOICE IN THE EVENTIDE